A bright full moon always adds a beautiful hint of shine to the sky. It casts down a gorgeous reflection of white, streaking shadows across the ground. It’s a true blessing when everything else is dark, and it makes your path that much more clearer — just as it makes this laam qamareeyah pronounced clearly…

Al-Laam Al-Qamareeyah: or “the Moon Laam” is the laam saakinah (sukoon on the laam) which must be pronounced clearly. This laam occurs at the beginning of the word (Al- ..) and occurs in nouns.

Pronouncing it clearly happens with the remaining 14 letters that aren’t covered in the laam shamseeyah.

These letters for laam qamareeyah can be remembered by noting the phrase:

You will notice in Quranic scripture a little haa looking shape (حـ) above the laam. This is just to act as a reminder for reciters: to make sure that you remember to say Al-… and not merge the laam into the next letter.

Examples of al-laam al-qamareeyah:

Al-Baladi

Al-hooni

Al–‘aalameena

Kal-jibaali

Note: just because there is a letter before, this does not change the ruling for the laam.

Here’s a challenge: can you guess why none of the “Al-” nouns have tanween on the end?

Don’t cheat. But if you can’t figure it out, read the answer on page 61 of Gateway To Arabic.